Carol,

On sign versus symbol, this site may be of use since it goes into C.S.
Peirce and Saussure's differences in use of the terms:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html.  It's a good
intro to semiotics.
On Jacques Derrida (JD) and the instability of meaning; at base what
he says is that in philosophical terms, our way of putting a cap on
meaning isn't convincing.  Concepts such as "context" end up limiting
the play of signification, whereas the process of signification
emerges from differential relations and deferral: dog isn't fog isn't
log, and so forth.  Our ways of making meaning finite, he suggests,
are similar to the invocation of a god-concept or a concept like
"structure" within structuralist thinking: the one key term we never
question, so it ends up being the absolute ground of an entire system.
 We privilege consciousness as the guarantor of stable meaning, but it
makes sense to say that speech tied to consciousness works in a
similar way as writing.  Really all JD is doing, I suppose, is
exploiting the implications inherent in Saussurean linguistics.
Anyhow, I would recommend a few books if your time permits: Giovanni
Manetti's Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity and Roy Harris'
Saussure and His Interpreters.
Will write more as time permits.
Cordially,
Diane

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